Fine for dialler spam

Posted by Virus Bulletin on Mar 1, 2004

UK watchdog fines US company for sending spam

A UK watchdog has fined a US company for sending spam. The fine was imposed by the UK's regulatory body for the premium rate telecommunications industry, the ICSTIS (Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services) because the spam messages sent by BW Telecom contained peak rate porn dialler software (see VB, December 2002, p.12).

The £75,000 fine was imposed after the ICSTIS received 240 complaints about the spam - in many cases users felt they had not been made sufficiently aware of what they were clicking on, and the dialler software failed to disconnect automatically once the cost of the call had reached the £20.00 limit set for premium rate services.

As well as fining BW Telecom and barring access to the service for a year, the ICSTIS also ordered the company to reimburse those who were left out of pocket by its dialler scam.

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